Bitcoin and gold are moving in closer lockstep than ever, according to data cited by The Block Data & Insights.
The report said Bitcoin’s 90-day Pearson correlation with gold has reached an all-time high, while the 30-day reading climbed to 0.8, its highest level of the year. That points to a period of tight price alignment between the two assets, with BTC tending to rise and fall alongside gold.
Debasement trade narrative takes center stage
The article said the latest move higher in both Bitcoin and gold is being driven by a “debasement trade.” In that framing, investors see the U.S. dollar and government-backed assets as losing value and are shifting capital toward hard assets.
Gold has traditionally filled that role, while Bitcoin is increasingly being grouped into the same category. The piece added that some macro analysts have pointed to rising sovereign debt in the United States, widening fiscal deficits, and the possibility of Federal Reserve intervention in the Treasury market as factors reinforcing that view.
ETF inflow figures cited in the report
The article listed several fund-flow datapoints:
- Gold ETFs and Bitcoin ETFs both ranked among the top 10 products by inflows.
- Bitcoin ETFs took in nearly $1 billion last week.
- Year-to-date inflows into Bitcoin ETFs stood at $1.89 billion.
- Among individual products, BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) had attracted $1.2 billion so far this year.
Two earlier spikes and what followed
According to the data referenced by The Block, Bitcoin-gold correlation has surged in a similar way twice before: in the fourth quarter of 2020 and the fourth quarter of 2022.
- In Q4 2020, the BTC-gold correlation rose to 0.6 before falling back, after which Bitcoin gained 172%.
- In Q4 2022, the correlation increased from near 0 to 0.5, and Bitcoin then advanced nearly 350% over the following 14 months.
The report said the key signal to watch is not just the rise in correlation itself, but the point at which Bitcoin decouples from gold. In the article’s reading, that has marked the point when a stronger bull phase begins. For now, it said, the market remains in the correlation-expansion stage rather than a decoupling phase.
Fear & Greed Index returns to 68
The report also highlighted the Crypto Fear & Greed Index, a 0-to-100 gauge of market sentiment. The index currently stands at 68, which falls into the “Greed” category. Earlier this year, it dropped to 5, labeled as extreme fear, before rebounding sharply during the week of Aug. 17 to Aug. 21.
That move was described in the article as the fourth-largest weekly swing in Bitcoin’s history, with the index rising by more than 10 points per day during that stretch.
Still below bubble-era conditions, report says
The article argued that current conditions still do not match the danger levels typically associated with a market bubble. It cited the 2026 move in the Fear & Greed Index from 5 to 74, a 69-point range, saying that ranks sixth over the past nine years. The largest historical range mentioned in the report came in 2019, when the index moved from 5 to 95, a 90-point spread.
The Block analysts said that despite elevated sentiment readings, the market has yet to show the extreme volatility and speculative frenzy commonly seen during bubble periods. In the report’s framing, if the current setup does mark an early bull-market phase, room remains before conditions resemble prior euphoric peaks.